Americano is an Italian drink combining vermouth with an aperitive or digestive bitter, seltzer, and ice. See aperitif and digestive. The name, Italian for “American-style” or “in the American way,” is an acknowledgment of the drink’s origin, which is as an Italian riff on the 1860s American practice of adding bitters to vermouth to turn it into a Vermouth Cocktail. This led to Italian producers making a pre-bittered “vermouth Americano,” mostly for their domestic markets. Yet many Italian drinkers agreed with the oenologist Arnaldo Strucchi’s opinion that it was better for “whoever enjoys drinking a vermouth with some modification or special flavor” such as bitters to have the drink made to order by adding “a little of the preferred liqueur to it.” By the end of the 1880s (at least according to Parisian bartender Émile Lefeuvre, writing in 1889), many Italians were doing just that and stretching out the resulting drinks with soda and ice. This marks the first fusion between the Italian aperitivo and American mixology.
Originally, a variety of bitters were used in the drink—Fernet Branca was one popular option—but by the 1930s Campari had largely driven out the others. That was perhaps due to the influence of the drink known in Turin as the “Torino Milano” and in Milan as the “Milano Torino,” which combined Turin’s vermouth and Milan’s Campari, but without the sparkling water.
The Americano was quite popular, both in Italy and abroad, through the 1960s, when it began to fade as drinkers switched to one of its variants, the Negroni. See Negroni. Nowadays, its role as a light, refreshing, and flavorful aperitif is usually played by the Aperol Spritz. See Aperol Spritz.
Recipe: Combine 45 ml Italian vermouth, 45 ml Campari bitters, and a splash of soda in an ice filled Highball glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon peel or an orange wheel.
Grassi, Elvezio. 1000 misture. Bologna: Cappelli, 1936.
Lefeuvre, Émile. Méthode pour composer soi-même les boissons Américains. Paris: 1889.
Mazzon, Ferruccio. Il barista. Trieste: Nazionale, 1920.
Strucchi, Arnaldo. Il vermouth di Torino. Casale Monferato: Cassoni, 1907.
By: Leo Leuci and David Wondrich